faderift | player plot | when my time comes around, pt. 5

Entry tags:

player plot | when my time comes around, pt. 5

WHO: Everyone!
WHAT: Everything's fine and we're going to have feelings about it.
WHEN: August 15 9:49
WHERE: Primarily the Gallows! But potentially anywhere.
NOTES: We made it! You are all free of my tyrannical plot grasp! There is a final OOC post with some notes + space for plotting here.

This is a timeline where, some mild chaos aside, things for the last month have carried on as normal. Riftwatch hasn't lost anyone at all. There were no funerals. The work continued. The late afternoon of August 15 may find people at their desks, in the midst of meetings or debriefs, in the library, in the sparring yard. Or maybe afield, seeing to errands or meetings or missions somewhere else in Thedas. Maybe, if they are particularly unlucky, they are deep in conversation with an ally or embroiled in combat with an enemy agent at the precise moment when the magical connection between two realities closes and the diverging timelines snap together into one existence.

At that moment, everyone forgets what it is they were just doing. Instead they remember what they might have been doing in the world where a third of Riftwatch's number was lost, despite their hands suddenly occupied with the normal business of handling pens or swords or books they don't recall picking up.

For the always-living, it may feel as though they have been magically transported somewhere new mid-thought. For the dead—the formerly dead, the might-have-been dead—it will feel as though they have just woken up. Perhaps they'll have a vague sense of a dream they now can't recall, in between their last conscious moment amid the blood and screams in Granitefell and awakening just now in a quieter world, or perhaps they'll have a sense of nothing at all.

For a few hours, the worse world will be the only one anyone can remember. Over time, memories of the other world—the only one that really exists now—will filter in, competitive with other memories in a way that might require everyone to double or triple check whether they wrote a letter or completed a mission in that timeline or this one. But the memories of death and dying will never fade into anything less real.

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In another circumstance, Byerly would not have been so easily led. But he is in these circumstances, and so he cannot follow up on that I said no. Instead, he looks at Benedict, and says, "Ah. Yes. The letter. I - " Wasn't planning on having to look you in the eye after saying those ludicrously sappy things. "Apologize for the sentimentality of it."

Then he looks back to Bastien. It's strange how guileless he is in his assumptions. The world-weary cynic, for whatever reason, doesn't think that either of these two would have suffered from any sort of base or petty emotions and would work as a team. Perhaps simply because of an underestimation of the effect his death would have, but perhaps it comes out of trust in them.

"Did you take on leadership?" Then, to Benedict, "And Artemaeus - did you manage to find some allyship with Flint? Did you secure a new place?"

Meeting Byerly's gaze in favor of not having to meet Bastien's, which he'd prefer not to do again as long as he lives if this keeps up, Benedict's mouth quirks into a sheepish little smile. Yes, it was sappy. Yes, he will treasure it forever.
"I'll be certain to hold it over your head the rest of your days," he says with a gentle dryness, growing somewhat more withdrawn when the line of questioning continues. He shakes his head, but then adds: "I barely had the time."

The squiggle of guilt that Bastien might have felt about this, too, is knocked flat and still by the mention of Benedict’s letter (Benedict’s stupid letter) being sentimental. His chin lifts. He rubs Byerly’s cheek with his thumb, because being unsorry and a little angry doesn’t at all lessen the miracle of his face being here, before letting go.

“I left.”

He’s still kneeling in front of By, hovering over his legs.

“Benedict told me when I was all packed and on my way out,” he has to say, because look at that horrible timing, that inexpert manipulation, but he also offers freely: “I would have left either way.”

Byerly stares at Bastien a moment, lips slightly parted in astonishment. But then his intellect catches up with his sense of duty, and he scolds himself: why would that be astonishing? Bastien talks about leaving often enough. He'd been on the verge of it, after Vincent had died; he'd raised it as a possibility even recently, during all that nonsense with the Chantry Mother's visit. He's made no secret of the fact that he's here, at least in part, to stick beside Byerly.

But - Well, perhaps it's a failing of the imagination. Sometimes it's hard to imagine a person - even a beloved person whose face you've memorized - as being truly different from you. But Bastien's definition of honor is different. It's always been different.

(And he crushes down the rebellious, stray thought that rises to mutter, actually, isn't that dishonorable?)

"I - see," By says. Then he takes a breath and says, "Well, that's all right," because that's better than asking whether the issue was that Benedict took too long to mention it or whether the issue was that Bastien left so soon. "It sounds like you all held it together quite well in spite of our losses. All of Riftwatch - to be able to execute on a plan like this. Stark and Flint and Yseult must have performed their duties phenomenally well."

Sparing either of them his commentary for the moment, Benedict nonetheless shoots Bastien a hard look. Yes, and you were a real piece of shit about it, his eyes say, even if his mouth doesn't.
He wrinkles his nose in an expression of subtle irritation when Byerly waves it off, but there's no reason to kick up all the mud again right this second. He won't take potshots, he'll be the bigger person. Bastien.

Edited (icon) 2023-09-01 19:52 (UTC)

Not noticing Benedict’s facial expressions at all is surely the best revenge. Not that Bastien intends it as revenge; he just doesn’t care enough to look away from Byerly to keep tabs on what Benedict is or isn’t doing with his nose.

“Stark, mostly,” Bastien says. “It was his team. His idea.” He sits back on his heels, reluctantly willing to tolerate that extra five inches of distance from Byerly’s face. For now. “And he came to find me. Maybe we should buy him a present.”

"Of course it would be him." Byerly's voice is rather vague and distracted. "It happened in his world, too. We went to see an entire play about it."

His gaze is turned down to the stone beneath him. He's lost for a moment. What more can he ask? What other information might cut through his confusion? He still half-hopes for a slap from one of them. He feels so...doubled. Like he himself is an actor observing the actions of a character he's playing, yet somehow without the power to break away from the script. It all feels like a dream.

And so he swallows. "I - suppose I ought to get up. Before someone sees me like this." Then - "I - don't know how to thank you. Either of you. For all that you did. I feel as though I'll be indebted beyond all possibility of repayment." (It's easier to fall back on these formulaic niceties, even towards these two. It's safe. Easy and thoughtless in a way that more heartfelt speech wouldn't be.)

"You should rest," is all Benedict says, still contending with how uncomfortable it is to see Byerly like this, to hear him speak this way. He might have enjoyed the gratitude, once upon a time, but at the moment all it does is remind him of how wrong everything was, how glad he'll be to get back to normal.

“Yes,” Bastien says, thrilled to agree with Benedict on a plan that involves ditching Benedict.

—and, less pettily, a plan that involves being genuinely alone with Byerly for the first time. To kiss him without feeling either rude or observed. To let his own guard down at all.

He’s still watching By’s face, keen-eyed, like maybe he can see past the polite mask if he examines it closely enough.

“Maybe we can find our girl, yeah?”

Some part of him really does want to rest here, to just press his face into the ground and not move. It’s the prospect of seeing Whiskey again that leads him to push through that notion. If he just goes a little further he can bury his fingers into her droopy neck and inhale her wonderful dog smell. All will seem right then.

“Yes,” he says, and for the second time forces himself to stand. (Maker, please, please, let them see no one on the way to his room. He will have no strength to put a wry and jocular show on. Not that he has to do so to keep secrecy - but he does have to do so.) “Yes, let’s go.”

Benedict nods, offering a sympathetic little smile to Byerly and then looking away. He'll stay here for a while, on the steps, and sober up.

"I'll see you in the morning," he says quietly-- it's perhaps too much to expect that anyone properly continue their work today, while all this is unfolding. But he'll be back, bright and early, where he belongs.

Bastien rises to his feet in a movement that is mostly fluid, aside from the unavoidable recent development of his crackling knees. Hands down to help Byerly. A sideways look at Benedict, finally, that’s nothing but a flat acknowledgment of his presence in parting.

Whiskey might have loped off to a garden in their absence, but more likely she’s in the office, basking in shade—or sniffing around Byerly’s room, obsessed with his fresh scent after a month without it.

By takes Bastien's hand to rise. A lot less fluidity here. By is competent enough, but no Bard; he learned that well enough an hour ago. Whenever it had happened.

A nod to Benedict. His gaze is grim, but grateful.

He and Bastien walk in silence a moment, crossing the courtyard, approaching the tower. It's only been a few days, in his estimation, since he was here, and yet there are signs indeed that it's been longer. The vegetation is heavy and lush, as it gets in late summer. Overhead, a line of geese fly, perhaps heading north for the winter.

"How long has it been?" he asks. "Since the battle." (Had Bastien said? By can't remember. For a moment, he fears that it has not been a matter of weeks, but of years. Is that conceivable?)

“A month,” should settle that fear quickly enough, and from there it’s simple to fill the silence on the stairs with impersonal details. The five who came home from Granitefell; the week of mourning and funerals; the plan Bastien wasn’t here to see the hatching of but has since picked up the timeline for secondhand.

It’s impersonal. He doesn’t talk about Byerly’s body, or what he did, or who he talked to, or when he left, or what he took, or where he went. The only thing that distinguishes it from a report to a superior on important tactical details is the fact that he’s clutching By’s hand the whole time, even when the stairs and the mismatched lengths of their legs threaten to make it awkward.

He doesn’t let go until they’re near the office doors, and only then because Whiskey—the laziest creature alive, they’ve established—has recognized a scent or the pattern of Byerly’s footfalls and come bounding through the office door with more manic energy than she had even as a puppy, loose skin sloshing around her face, baying once before switching to an overwhelmed whine at the sight of him.

If By is still interested in being slapped, the dog will handle it—with her front paws, with her tail, with her entire body.

Byerly receives the report like from a lieutenant. Almost convinces himself that's what it is. He's heard stories of massacres before, and hadn't shed a tear - felt an ache, yes, but raw-rubbed flesh grows calluses over time. So he can pretend that this is no different. A pity - that's most of that particular organization wiped out - but a few dozen deaths isn't so much in the grand scheme of things. Not compared to everything else happening in this war.

So maybe it's the forced aloofness that leads him to not really expect the sudden assault. Byerly didn't even know that Whiskey could jump - she'd done it a few times as a puppy, to be sure, but once she hit adulthood she'd decided it wasn't really for her. She even often wants him to lift her into bed, huffing and puffing at her weight. And so he's staggered backwards by the force of her -

"Oof - "

And lands with his back against the wall behind him. She can't reach his face to lick, and is clearly deeply outraged by this inability; so he bends down, and she slobbers on his face, and he finds that he's crying and hugging her, and whispering, "I'm sorry" into her neck as she gives little whines of shock and delight. (Though her reaction is not tempered with any anger, or any regret, or really even any sorrow; her joy is pure and unadulterated. So, truly, she's probably not the one he's apologizing to.)

It’s the greeting Byerly deserves. Bastien knows that. He watches him, watches Whiskey overflow with joy—and steps away. He shuts the door. They haven’t made it into Byerly’s office, but Benedict’s has a door, too, so it will do.

When he comes back he sinks down beside them. Whiskey tosses one swipe of her tongue in his direction, a yes, hello, love you too before returning to the vital business of trying to be absorbed directly into Byerly’s skin.

It’s a desire he can relate to.

He doesn’t interfere with their reunion. He presses in against By’s side without needing to push her away. Gets an arm around his back without disrupting her. Rubs her back with his other hand out of affection and gratitude.

Byerly has said he’s sorry more than Bastien ever wanted him to, when he wanted him to. He whispers, “Shh,” and then, “I missed you,” which is such a small thing to say. Like By had gone away for a little while. Like his absence was less than total; like he was out there somewhere, cheating at cards and annoying people into donating money in some faraway city, and Bastien knew the whole time he only had to wait.

He should cry, but he doesn’t. It’s easier to talk now that he’s gotten started though, in this unwatched space, with Whiskey still whining even as she begins to settle down and accept leaning her full weight heavy into Byerly as a substitute for writhing with joy—

“I missed you so much I didn’t know how to do it.”

There are few things that make you feel safer than being held by the man you love. Being crushed under the weight of a massive dog is one of those few things. It feels solid and real, having her lay on him, and it feels solid and real to smell Bastien's tobacco scent, and it feels solid and real to hear Bastien murmur that confession into his ear. No stiff impartiality any longer. No cold remove. Just a description of grief, awkward and ill-formed but still so utterly comprehensible.

"I thought about - " Byerly creaks out, fingers buried in Whiskey's wrinkles, compressing and stretching them by turns, "how much I wanted you to join me. And how little I wanted you to. I missed you so much. But I'm so glad you would have survived - Fuck, it's such a mess." He buries his face into the crook of Bastien's neck, arms tightening around his dog.

He gets to keep this. He presses a squashed kiss to By’s hair with only half of his mouth, the most he can reach, and he tries to believe he gets to keep this—for a long time, for seventy years, and some of them will even be peaceful years, when there’s nothing to draw Byerly away from knocking about Thedas looking for good trouble to get into, and they’ll make their difference, and they’ll have a dozen dogs. It’s not only a matter of weeks or months or single-digit years until some other attack takes him away and Bastien has to learn to be without him again. Because if that’s the case he ought to practice more now, ought to hold himself a little more apart so there’s less damage.

He tries.

“Yeah,” he says. A mess.

And he tries to think about what Byerly needs from him. There is nothing in his catalog of human observations for this. What does a person who’s come back from the dead need?

“What did it feel like?” comes tentatively, primed to be retracted at any sign that Byerly would rather not talk about it right now.

"Mm."

There's no sign that Byerly doesn't want to talk about it. After all, it's that moment that's sat in his head for this whole time, the central obsession for every step from Hightown to here. He needs to talk about it, as one needs to vomit up one's sick.

"It was like passing out drunk." But that's not a metaphor that Bastien will understand well enough, is it? Not self-controlled Bastien, who'd only recently learned the feeling of a hangover. "Or like skidding downhill on your ass, just - nothing to grab onto. I knew it was coming."

But then there's this last part. This last part is difficult.

"And then there was nothing."

Byerly is not such a believer, of course, that this will shatter his world. The thought of some existence after death has at times been a comforting one, but at other times, the thought that there is no true escape from the work of existence has terrified him. At another point in his life, the knowledge of nothing might, in fact, have been a comfort. But not now. Not when there's something he wants to hold forever.

"Hard to know what that means."

“Maybe you don’t get to keep those memories,” Bastien proposes. “Maybe you have to be dead to comprehend them. Or maybe there is nothing.”

A concession to his own agnosticism. He’s more hoper than believer.

Whiskey has quieted down, seemingly content to believe Byerly isn’t going anywhere ever again, now that she has him pinned between her weight and the wall and the floor. She lies down across him, head lolling, droopy eyes occasionally flicking toward his face to make sure he’s still there and maybe, hopefully, paying attention to her. She only whines every minute or so, and they begin to mix with contented sighs.

It gives Bastien a little room to lean away, forcing By’s face out from its hiding place in his neck, and hold his face in his hands instead.

He dries his cheeks with his thumbs. He smiles, just a little.

“Oblivion would at least be better than the Maker’s side looking like Hightown.”

Byerly laughs. It's weak, more a huff than anything else, but still, he laughs. It's an easy and comfortable sort of joke, the kind that Bastien would tell under less dire circumstances. Normalcy.

By rests his chin in Bastien's hands. That beloved face has become strange, in the way that a word repeated too many times becomes unreal, in the way that a familiar song turns alien when your mind twists just a certain way. Like floating pieces, disconnected from one another, just happening to coincide in the same place. By's free hand comes up to trace the heavy brows, the broad nose, the soft lips. He studies the eyes, dark and keen - a marvel, always, that Bastien could pass unnoticed with those clever and watchful eyes. How many fools are there in the world? All these parts are so familiar, and yet so strange when taken as a whole.

"You had died, once," he says, taking himself a little by surprise as he says it. "Not in truth, but in that dream of the future. It was very hard, being without you. Even just in the dream." His hand comes down further to rest on Bastien's throat. "I mean to ask - Are you doing all right?"

Even in just the dream—even when it had been only a few months, in reality, and the dream-fragments of the life they'd shared before the arrow took that imagined version of Bastien could only be Byerly's best guess as to what they would be like, whether they'd make it at all instead of calling things off—even then Byerly sobbed in his and Alexandrie's arms, when Bastien came back. Even that soon, By loved him enough to let it hurt that much.

Now Bastien starts to smile again, teeth and tongue positioning already for the first syllable of you know me. Always all right, or at least more all right than everyone else.

He says, "No," though. "I mean, I haven't been."

He leans into By's hand, which also means leaning his head against the wall behind them.

"I've been—I left, you know. And I haven't—I can't believe you wanted me to do your job." In the face of a whole-ass miracle, Bastien's outrage at that has simmered down to wry, friendly annoyance. Which is still absurd. But focusing on this is easier than focusing on the enormity of By's absence. "I can't believe you told Benedict to tell me to do your job."

Of all the things Byerly was expecting -

"You'd be good at it," he says, as if that's the most important thing. And to duty-bound Byerly, of course, it is. "And besides," he adds, "I only meant it in the interim. Until someone else could be trained up. The Lady Seeker was who I had in mind - she's still a little green - and you could do that. So it wasn't doing my job, per se, just - "

He laughs, then, this noise a little more baffled and a little stronger for it. There's no real sadness in that confusion. There's just incredulity.

"Were you offended?" Because Bastien is giving - lightly, but giving - an air of offense.

"Offended," Bastien echoes—not a word he had considered before—"that I didn't know what you wanted done with your ashes, and I felt half like a thief going through your things, and I had to write to your sister and your wife and your lover and I did not know what you wanted me to say to any of them, and when I had done all of that and did the work that had be done and I was trying to get out of here before I,"

had some kind of breakdown, probably, but he doesn't finish the thought or the sentence. His hand slips off By's face onto Whiskey's back.

"Then I find out that your assistant has your last wishes, and your last wish for me is that I go back upstairs and do some work?"

Offended.

"Sure. I was offended."

Head lolling against the wall behind him, the look he gives Byerly is not devoid of self-aware humor. He's complaining to a man who just miraculously returned from the dead about the practical details of handling his affairs. Absurd.

"And it was stupid, and now it is even more stupid to be talking about it, because it didn't even really happen."

"Well, that's - "

Valid. All of it. Byerly's excuse is flimsy: that it's easy to write down instructions. That it's easy to be thinking about the logistics of death. It's all the more flimsy because it's an excuse that falls apart under scrutiny. It wasn't just instructions he'd written to Benedict; he'd shared care, as well, and said the things he didn't say while he was alive. So he doesn't even have the excuse of only wanting to put the impersonal down in writing.

Why didn't you have something for him?

"Do you have instructions for me?" He's careful to make that a question, rather than something accusatory. Because maybe Bastien - careful, conscientious Bastien - does. And Byerly would look like an idiot if the answer to that is yes.

His hand falls onto Whiskey's back as well. Petting her gently, not quite touching Bastien's hand.

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